The novel
Charm has already sold more than 100,000 copies. It debuted at No. 13 on the New York Times best-seller list. However, its author, Kendall Hart, isn't real. Hart is a character on the ABC soap opera "All My Children." As this
NY Times article puts it: "It has Kendall’s name on the cover but the name of the actual writer is being kept secret."
This is why writers get depressed. They work hard to produce good books, which end up in remainder bins. Meanwhile, people flock in droves to buy a book just because it has the name of a soap opera character slapped on the front cover.
These kind of books spun-off from TV shows seem to be increasingly common. I think
Lost has produced a few of them, which have also sold well.
Comments
but this thing reminds me of "venus in a halfshell" a book that Kurt Vonnegut talks about the fictional Kilagore Trout writing in one of his books. Philip J Farmer decided it would be fun if an actual Kilagore Trout novel be published and wrote "Venus...", and ended up having Kurt Vonnegut hurling abuse at him down the phone.